Government under fire for RSS leader’s speech telecast

Agencies/New Delhi

The Communist Party of India-Marxist yesterday criticised the government for telecasting live the annual speech of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) chief on Doordarshan. The party said the telecast clearly showed “how the public broadcaster was being misused”.

The CPI-M said RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had used “the occasion to propagate its Hindutva ideology”.

“The national public broadcaster has no business to telecast live the speech of the chief of an organisation like the RSS,” a CPI-M statement said.

In Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala state CPI-M secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, said the telecast clearly showed that Bhagwat was above the prime minister of the country.

“We have been telling all about the vice-like grip the RSS has over the BJP. But the public did not understand and today the address on Doordarshan by the RSS chief has cleared all doubts. This shows the RSS chief is above the prime minister,” Vijayan told reporters here.

“The situation is such that the prime minister and the cabinet take directions from the RSS,” Vijayan claimed.

Congress spokesperson Tom Vadekkan while speaking to a TV channel said that the telecast showed the RSS was engaged in backseat driving of the BJP government.

“What needs to be noted is that this was telecast on Doordarshan, when RSS at one point of time was a banned organisation,” Vadekkan pointed out.

Senior journalist O Abdurehman said it’s the RSS which is ruling the country now. “In the coming days more such things will be visible,” Abdurehman opined.

However, Kerala BJP leader George Kurian said there was nothing wrong in the telecast as “speeches are certainly news and should be covered.”

“The RSS is the biggest cultural organisation and its leader’s speeches are news and such events will be covered and there’s nothing wrong in it,” said Kurian.

Bhagwat in his speech yesterday urged the government to embrace “a new model of development” and also came out strongly against caste discrimination in the Hindu society.

In his annual speech to mark the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s founding day, Bhagwat patted the Modi government saying it was “moving in the right direction” since taking office in May.

“It is necessary that policies of the government should take the nation towards self-reliance and encourage entrepreneurship among the people,” Bhagwat said in an hour-long speech in Hindi near the RSS headquarters.

“But it is equally important for the people to encourage consumption of swadeshi (local) products.

“Our tendency of buying foreign goods simply because they are cheaper in price needs to be abandoned,” he said.

“We must remember that self-reliance should be a necessary component of national prosperity and security.”

Bhagwat praised the Modi government, saying it had spread hope “of (the) emergence of (a new) Bharat” and that there were signs that people’s desire for better life would reflect in Modi’s governance.

“In a very short period, some policy initiatives taken by the central government in national interest (vis-a-vis) economy, national security, international relations and many other areas have raised hopes.

“The government should now ensure that these policies maintain their momentum in a determined and well organised manner.”

He asked people to give the government time to solve various problems confronting the country.

“Nobody has a magic wand by which all problems of many years will disappear.”

Bhagwat voiced concern over the infiltration of Bangladeshis into West Bengal and Assam as well as the activities of Maoists.

The RSS chief said there was an urgent need to end social discrimination “in our society in a bigger and speedier manner”.

He asked people “to remove habits, misbeliefs, traditions and practices which encourage discrimination”.

“We will have to drive out even the smallest remnants of our caste-based, regional and linguistic egos which breed such prejudices,” he said.